Hot gooey chocolate puddings.

Hot

gooey

chocolate

pudding

Put them all together, the order isn’t really important

Pudding gooey chocolate hot

chocolate hot pudding gooey

puddling not chocolate goose

or Hot gooey chocolate pudding

I think the title of this recipe says it all really. Served hot from the oven like little chocolate volcanoes, these puddings are soft and cakey on the outside, the surface just beginning to crack, but inside they are filled with the steaming molten lava of hot chocolate goo.

I make these all the time, not just because they are all the above and delight just about everyone, but because they are stupidly easy to make and can be prepared long before your guests arrive. Once you are feeling nearly ready for dessert, you pot-up and then slide them in the oven, 12 minutes later you manoever the steaming pots to the table and the awaiting spoons.

I usually dig straight in, I do have an asbestos mouth though, hitting the lava head on. Vincenzo on the other hand waits a while so the liquid center cools a little and transforms into a soft fudgy cream.

I always make a pot for everyone and then a couple more just in case. But these little pots do not seem to provoke civilized behaviour and more often than not precipitate an unruly group spoon clatter as cutlery is plunged into the nearest pot scattered on the table. We pause every now and then, claiming we can’t eat another mouthful only return to a pot 5 minutes later for another spoonful.

In case you think I was being rude about Nigellaesque groans, I wasn’t, I mean that would be very ungracious considering this is her recipe.

Hot gooey chocolate puddings

From Nigella Lawson’s How to eat. Makes 5 pots.

• 125g best quality dark chocolate
• 125g unsalted butter
• 3 large eggs
• 150g caster sugar
• 35g plain flour
• extra butter and flour for the ramekins.

Break the chocolate into small pieces, dice the butter and put them in a bowl suspended over a pan of simmering water to gently melt. Whisk every now and then until both are perfectly melted.

In another bowl gently whisk the eggs and stir in the sugar and flour.

Gradually and gently whisk the melted chocolate and butter into the egg mixture. Allow the mixture to rest a while – it will happily sit for 3 or 4 hours.

Once you are nearly ready for pudding set the oven to 200.°

Rub the insides of the ramekins with butter and dust with flour. Divide the mixture between the 5 ramekins and put them on a baking sheet.

Bake them for 10 – 12 minutes or until the edges are set and the tops are nearly firm and cracking a little but you can still see a spot of the molten center.

Serve immediately with some very cold cream which people can pour in the steaming chocolate volcano if they so wish.